At its peaks, the album delivers on the promise of its star-wattage with some of the most affecting and emotionally overwhelming pop songs of the year.
這張專輯傾盡了它的全部：它實現了群星璀璨的承諾，帶給了我們本年度最具影響力與渲染力的流行歌曲。
A star Is Born has no right to be as good as it is. Directed by Bradley Cooper, the third remake of David O. Selznick's 1937 film has been in development for most of the decade and at one point counted Clint Eastwood as its director with, impossibly, Beyoncé in the lead role that Lady Gaga now occupies. The immersive and romantic narrative of singer-songwriter Ally (Gaga) and her relationship with veteran rocker Jackson Maine (Cooper) as the latter watches the former rocket to pop stardom is imbued with the sort of rockism that typically triggers derision in the current cultural climate. But alongside powerful turns from Cooper and Sam Elliott, Gaga shines brightest with an empathetic performance that presents a summation-in-reverse of the last several years of her career.
《一個明星的誕生》沒理由不拍得那麼好！這部由布拉德利·庫珀執導，作為大衛·奧·塞爾茲尼克於1937年拍攝的電影的第三部改製片，在其拍攝與製作的十年中大部分時間都在不斷地進行調整與改進。這部片子曾一度由克林特·伊斯特伍德執導，更令人難以置信的是，計劃讓Beyoncé出演如今由Lady Gaga擔任的女主角。電影以一種細膩動情的浪漫筆觸將故事娓娓道來：歌手兼作曲家Ally(Gaga)與老搖滾歌手Jackson Maine (Cooper) 擦出了愛情的火花。而這位老搖滾歌手卻親眼見證了自己的隕落：後者看著前者迅速成為流行歌星，充滿了那種在當前文化氛圍中通常會引發嘲笑的搖滾主義。但是除了Cooper和Sam Elliott的巨大轉變之外，Gaga以其感同身受的表演閃爍著最耀眼的光芒。這是她對近幾年職業生涯的反向總結。
Since the aggressive blare of 2013's ARTPOP, Gaga has moved further away with every career turn from the brand of pop that put her on the map circa her 2008 debut The Fame; she took up crooning alongside Tony Bennett for 2014's Cheek to Cheek and hopped in the studio with Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker and Father John Misty for 2016's Joanne. When the curtain rises on A Star Is Born, she's covering Edith Piaf with fake eyebrows taped on her face; two hours later, she's a full-blown pop star, complete with backup dancers and split-second costume changes. With a wholly organic and real-feeling performance, Gaga again engages in the blur between person and persona that she's toyed with for much of her iconographic career thus far.
自2013年的ARTPOP咄咄逼人的爆發以來，Gaga在職業生涯的每一次轉折中都走得更遠。2008年，她的The Fame空降樂壇，使得流行文化轉向；2014年，她與Tony Bennett一同輕聲哼唱出Cheek to Cheek的美妙旋律；2016年，她與Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker和Father John Misty一同跳入演播室，創作出了專輯Joanne。當《一個明星的誕生》的幕布徐徐拉開時，她畫著像Edith Piaf那樣的眉毛；兩個小時後，她成為了一位成熟的流行歌星，配有後備舞者與瞬間變換的服裝。通過完全有機與真實的表現，Gaga再次陷入了人與人之間的模糊關係之中，這是她至今一直在她多面的職業生涯中所挑戰的。
At its peaks, the album delivers on the promise of its star-wattage with some of the most affecting and emotionally overwhelming pop songs of the year. If you』ve spent half a day on the internet over the past several weeks, you』ve likely encountered the explosive Gaga-Cooper duet 「Shallow,」 and deservedly so; it’s a stormy ballad so instantly iconic that its place in Oscar montages for decades to come is practically guaranteed. At the risk of heresy, though, it might not even count as the strongest song on the album—at the least, it reaches a three-way tie with the swaying, unabashedly sentimental 「Always Remember Us This Way」 and the film’s stunning, heart-wrenching closer, 「I』ll Never Love Again.」
這張專輯傾盡了它的全部：它實現了群星璀璨的承諾，帶給了我們本年度最具影響力與渲染力的流行歌曲。如果你在過去的幾個星期曾網上衝浪過，你很有可能已經遇到了當之無愧的爆炸性的Gaga和Cooper合唱的單曲Shallow。這是一首風雨飄搖的民謠，並以極快的速度成為了標誌性歌曲：它幾乎有把握能在未來幾十年的奧斯卡蒙太奇中佔有一席之地。然而，儘管這樣說會有被認為是異端的風險，但這首歌甚至算不上是專輯中最強勁的歌曲——但至少，它與搖擺的、毫不掩飾感傷的「Always Remember Us This Way」以及「I』ll Never Love Again」這兩首歌曲之間驚人、令人心痛的接近使它們達到了三部曲的結合。
Those three standouts heavily feature Gaga—the latter two as solo performances—which speaks to the somewhat uneven nature of the Cooper-led cuts. The simple, sincere, Isbell-penned 「Maybe It’s Time」 possesses a quiet radiance, but otherwise Cooper’s songs as Maine take on a somewhat anonymous blues-rock shape alongside the soundtrack’s more dynamic moments. Despite the strength of Gaga’s performances captured on this soundtrack—all live takes recorded during filming, an approach that she insisted on—she isn’t totally off the hook when it comes to the lowlights either; the more explicitly pop songs that make up Ally’s ascent as a solo artist range from forgettable (「Heal Me」) to ridiculous (「Why Did You Do That?」).
而這三首歌曲的主要特點就是Gaga。後兩首曲子作為她的獨唱，說明了這張原聲帶多少帶有一點不平衡的性質，削弱了Cooper的領導作用。簡單，真誠，Isbell所寫的「Maybe it's Time」有一種安靜的光輝；但除此之外，Cooper為Maine所唱的歌在這張原聲帶中則更像是不具名的藍色巖石形狀一般，存在於更有活力的時刻。儘管在這首原聲帶中Gaga的表演很精彩——所有的現場演出都是在拍攝過程中錄製的，她堅持這樣做。當低潮來臨時，她也不是一下子就脫離了困境；更明確的流行歌曲組成了Ally作為獨唱歌手的崛起過程。從Heal Me到荒謬可笑的why did you do that，不一而足。
The mere act of engaging with A Star Is Born's songs in a home-listening setting presents a very modern issue: dialogue or no dialogue? Streaming services currently offer both dialogue-free and dialogue-heavy versions of the soundtrack, the latter functioning as a somewhat spoiler-y but surprisingly immersive experience of the film itself. Choosing which version to stream is a peculiar conundrum to face (imagine, for instance, buying two separate copies of The Bodyguard soundtrack), but even though 「I』ll Never Love Again」 is plenty effective on its own, the dialogue-included version of the song dramatically cuts out in its final seconds the same way the film does: jumping back in time from Gaga’s time-stopping performance to a pivotal and heartbreaking scene that only enhances the song's emotional quotient.
在與家人一起聆聽的環境下，僅僅是接觸這張原聲帶的歌曲這一行為就帶來了一個非常現代的問題：要不要聽其中的14個dialogue？目前流媒體服務提供無對白和有對白兩種版本，後者有些破壞收聽感受，但對於其所帶來的置身於電影之中的經歷則令人驚喜。選擇播放哪一個版本是一個特殊的難題（想像一下，假如你買了兩張The bodyguard的原聲帶！），儘管「I』ll Never Love Again」這首歌曲的原始版本已經足夠精彩，但其包括對話在內的版本(film version)在歌曲的最後幾秒就像電影中一樣，戲劇性地讓歌聲戛然而止：Gaga所處的時間停止，跳回到電影中一個關鍵而令人心碎的場景，這樣的做法提高了歌曲的情緒感染力。
The switch-up is a nice trick as a listening experience, but it also unintentionally highlights the incidental flaw of A Star Is Born’s soundtrack: It just can’t pack the emotional punch of watching the songs performed within the film. The live recording of 「Always Remember Us This Way」 doesn’t capture Gaga’s impassioned physical delivery behind the piano, her face emblazoned on a JumboTron behind her as Cooper goes moony-eyed at her blown-up visage. And as powerful as 「Shallow」 is, nothing matches the look of genuine surprise on Gaga’s face as Ally, when she hits her higher register for the first time and effectively launches the song into the emotional cosmos and beyond. These moments speak to her obvious strengths as a performer, as well as how impressively the music works in congress with the film’s imagery; you can recreate them in your head while listening, or go for your best Gaga while belting these songs out in the shower, but it’s just not as effective as the real thing.
作為聆聽體驗，切換是一個不錯的技巧，但這也無意中向我們展現了 A Star Is Born原聲帶中一個附帶的缺陷：如果不結合電影情節食用歌曲，我們或許不能得到相應的情感衝擊。「Always Remember Us This Way」的現場錄音不能捕捉到Gaga在鋼琴後進行的激情肢體動作表演，她臉龐的剪影映在她身後的JumboTron上而被放大，Cooper對著這張被放大的臉怒目而視。同時，儘管Shallow這首歌已經足夠強大有力，但是沒有任何東西能與Gaga臉上所展露的驚喜相提並論——在電影中，Ally第一次登上了更高的舞臺，成功地將這首歌推向情感的最深處。這些時刻說明了她作為表演者的優勢，以及音樂在這部電影裡的形象是多麼地令人印象深刻。當聆聽這張原聲帶時，你可以在腦海中重現電影中的場景，或者在沐浴時像你心目中的Gaga那樣引吭高歌，雖然這樣做的效果並沒有身臨其境那般好！